Reading body language, part 1

When we communicate with another person, we really have only two ways of reading the information coming at us. The first is the verbal signals, the actual words someone says to us. The second is the non-verbal signals: the body language, the voice, the facial expressions, the gestures. And of these two channels, we trust one first, without a moment's hesitation. We trust the body.

Here is what that means in practice. If someone tells you something while their body quietly shows they do not believe it themselves, you will value your reading of their body far above their spoken words. The body wins.

So let me ask you something. How many pieces of body language do you know? Stop for a second and answer silently to yourself. Ten? Fifty? A hundred? More? In all likelihood your conscious knowledge of body language is fairly limited. But take a peek at your unconscious knowledge, the reading you do without ever thinking about it, and your arsenal is all but bottomless.

Of course you can act perfectly well on what you read unconsciously, on what you simply feel as a gut sense. But it can be genuinely useful to bring some of it into the light and see which signals are steering our judgement. So here is a rough, generalised list, based above all on Western body language.

Open and interested

• Upper body leaning forward
• Open hands
• Palms on show
• Lively gestures
• Head tilted to one side
• Agreeing nods
• Raised eyebrows
• Smiling

Insecure, shy or nervous

• Biting or gnawing on an object
• Biting the nails
• Hands in the pockets
• Tics, those recurring unnatural little gestures
• Stiff, rigid body language
• Stroking the skin or the clothes
• Poor eye contact
• Sweating
• Swaying back and forth
• Pacing the same route over and over

Reflecting, thinking it over

• Stroking the chin
• A searching gaze, away from you
• The eyes moving and no longer quite as focused
• Noting things in a jerky, pausing way, as if the person is thinking

Suspicious

• Arms crossed
• Legs crossed
• Body leaning back
• Furrowed brows
• Rubbing the back of the neck

Read these not as hard rules but as gentle clues. A single gesture rarely tells the whole story. It is the cluster, the pattern, the whole person in front of you that speaks. In the next part we will go further, but for now, simply start noticing. You already know far more than you think.